Disclaimer: The battle of good and evil, the rhythm of loss and win, and the history of Narnia do not belong to me.
A/N: I'm reading through I and II Chronicles, and the rhythm of victory and loss is so clear. If Israel keeps the covenant, they win - even if they have an army of 580,000 and the enemy has 1,000,000. With chariots. If Israel forsakes their God, they lose. And yet, looking at my own life, my friends' lives, victory doesn't seem so clearly cut. The struggles, the losses, the wounds, are piling up. And I thought of the New Testament, where that pattern holds true; and I thought of Narnia, which is the same. I wanted to show times Aslan answered, and times they lost.
Also, I named the story Hosanna because I've come to love it as a prayer. It originally meant "Save!"; a cry of desperation and help. But over time it changed, as words do, and it's now defined as "an expression of adoration, praise, or joy." It still means Save, but could be better understood as "He will save." So I took it as a prayer, on the faith that one day it will be an exclamation for me rather than a plea.
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him,"
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
—Psalm 13: 3-6
I failed my charge. The moles were tasked with caring for the tree, the tree whose leaves gave light even on the stormiest of nights, whose apples were a silver that made the metal look dead. We kept its roots free of root, and dryads trimmed its branches, and all Narnians around sat in its shade and light and loved it for hundreds of years.
I was given care of the tree from my father, who had it from his father, who had it from his. We called it family and loved it like home. I was there with five others the day the Narnians at the border failed to keep watch or were killed; I heard the shrieking that sent shivers down my fur; I turned and grabbed my shovel when I saw the burning torches shining red light on evil things; and I took two down before a satyr thrust me through. They left my lying a few feet away from home, bleeding out, and I turned terrified eyes to the tree. To my home. I saw them set its branches alight, its apples fall, its leaves turn from silver light to red. I heard the thunk, thunk, thunk of the axe at its base. And I prayed, I prayed with all my might, Aslan, save. Stop them and save us.
There was no answer. I saw the tree pulled over with terrified eyes before my eyesight failed and my breathing grew strained. The evil cheered, whooped, and roared, and tramped away across the border. Around me grew cold, so cold; the world faded to white.
Aslan, was my last thought, why didn't You stop them?
The Lion watched with pain, knowing, as He knew all things, that the greatest cost would fall on Him. The time was coming closer for it. But Narnia still fought.
OOOOO
Snarls, screams, ripping, slashing, teeth, sword, and club. I stayed between our giant's feet, barking, growling, protecting them so he could swing his club. We were attacking the White Witch and we were winning. We made it to the castle courtyard; we were inside. I jumped, one short leap, to victory! Her reign would end in a short two years.
But then my sharp dog's hearing heard the oddest change. A lessening of noise. Behind me things were gradually quieting, and I turned. It was quiet, truly quiet, because my friends were no longer living. They were stone. The Witch, teeth bared, was waving a wand none of us had seen, and at each touch another of my friends froze forever. The giant above me rumbled, raising his foot, and stomped, the ground shaking, and I fell. When I got back up I saw one his leg, too, was gray. Hard, unliving, stone. I leaped out from under him, running, away from terror. Aslan, I prayed, save us. It was my last thought before cold metal touched me. I didn't move again for nearly a hundred years.
His answer came so late.
He came. His breath countered every curse; His breath gave life. I heard it had been a hundred years, and in later years I wondered, why?
OOOOO
My mother, the spirit of an old and creaking willow tree, told me I had too much green in my wood, that the sap of my tree ran too quickly to grow well. I didn't listen, and many were the limbs I lost to the Witch's winter. I was ready for it to be over; and one day it was. I was the first to shed my snow mantle; first to bloom in our small clearing. And the first to walk from my tree to join great Aslan's camp. I was there the day three little humans and two beavers entered the camp and Aslan received them; I took the smallest sapling's hand, warm in mine, and she told me her name was Lucy. I was there the morning after the fourth was rescued, ready with bandages if the raiding party needed them. And I was there the day the White Witch entered the camp.
It was so cold. My limbs suddenly felt the weight of snow again, the cruel breaking of fragile limbs, the savage pleasure for pain in her face. So white, so very white, more deadly than her snow. I could hardly walk when Aslan bid us leave.
Aslan, save us. From her, and her white, cruel, winter's reign.
A few days later she was dead, and He was living.
He saved all Narnia, and me as well.
The Lion left after the coronation; but we trusted Him all our days.
OOOOO
Cair Paravel's doors were closed, but shuddering under the strain of the boom, boom, boom of the ram. The shores were filled with Telmarine ships, the tops of the stone walls breached by their boulders, and parts of the castle burned by their weapons. Fully half the guard were dead, and even I, an old, duck librarian, was doing what I could to guard our walls. But I looked at the cook, a middle-aged beaver, and both of us knew this was hopeless.
Aslan, save us.
The walls were breached the next day. Our dying shrieks filled Cair Paravel, till even the Telmarines fled from the noise. But there were none left alive to see it.
The Lion wept for every death. The Narnians who came, grieved, and buried the bodies asked one another, why didn't He stop this?
OOOOO
I was just a badger kit when my father first told stories of Old Narnia. Of a time when it was free, when four kings and queens reigned from the coast, and all talking animals, dwarves, dryads, fauns, centaurs, all of us, lived freely.
Freedom. I couldn't imagine it.
But Father told more stories, and I listened, and I held on. I held on to that hope of freedom restored. And when the true king of Narnia, Caspian the Tenth, was dumped right outside the doorstep by a branch and a storm, I knew the time had come.
We gathered the Old Narnians, meeting them, sending Pattertwig to tell more of them, and held council on the Dancing Lawn. But we were told we must flee, flee to a place of safety, and prepare for war.
We did. And we fought. We fought with all we had, and it wasn't enough; we were beaten and beaten and beaten.
Still I held on.
We called for aid with a gifted horn, and I settled in to wait, as I had waited since a kit, for true Narnian kings.
But the battle went on without them, and though I still held on, I looked around and prayed, Aslan, save us.
The kings came, the Lion roared, the river was freed, and Narnia was restored.
Aslan saved.
And He said to me, well done, good and faithful one.
OOOOO
My wrists were clasped in metal chains, my ankles, my elbows, my knees, my waist. My voice was hoarse with screaming, cursing; when was the last time I had seen daylight? Felt air that moved, not suffocated; felt freedom, instead of enchantments. I was buried in my own tomb and still alive. It was cold, cold, and dead, soft noises, no word of joy. I could not break my bonds. I could not. My wrists were raw, the metal bit. Years, years I had been a prisoner; years since I had heard a single world of real love or hope.
From the depths of the earth, Aslan, save.
Three adventurers came and I was freed, even in time to see my father. He took the captive and made him king.
OOOOO
We were told to be slaves, to pull logs, murdered bodies of dryads we'd known, while whipped and beaten. Our hooves stuck in the mud of the place we'd once called home, and we were harnessed with leather where we'd once run free. Calormenes told us we belonged to them, and we agreed. Aslan told us to.
How can we ask to be saved, when it was Aslan Himself who sentenced us?
We daren't.
So we pulled, and we labored, and we lost heart. We lost hope.
Then one dark night, a bonfire lit on a hill by stable where hope became dread, little Talking Mice came creeping to us, and told us the truth. The Aslan we'd seen had been a lie. He never bid us be slaves. He'd sent our King Tirian to set us free, King Tirian who waited on the hill. We reared, our hooves pawing the Narnian air, and raced up the hill to the stable.
Aslan, save us. Save Narnia. It was so good to pray again.
We never reached the King. Arrow after arrow, shot from Narnians, dwarves we'd lived with, sank into our flanks, our heads, and killed. We lay dying on Narnia's ground without ever reaching our king. Fading, we thought,
Aslan?
We all lost that day. Every one of us. But at the end of our losing was Him, standing in the door, waiting. For us. For all His own.
OOOOO
(1) They had seen strange things enough through the Doorway. But it was stranger than any of them to look around and find themselves in warm daylight, the blue sky above them, flowers at their feet, and laughter in Aslan's eyes.
Nor was that the end. Aslan cried for them to follow Him further up and further in; and they followed. They found Narnia, real, living, truer than what they'd left. They found a mountain, a mansion, a garden filled with Narnians.
With a mole from the felling of the tree, who tended the tree of King Frank and Queen Helen with his family. And a dog who fought in the Witch's castle and who now had all the time of eternity; a dryad who laughed and held out her hand to Lucy once again; a duck who wrote down their tales and discussed them with a beaver cook; Trufflehunter, King Rilian, and all the heroes who ever fought for Narnia, from its first battle to its last.
Each had looked to Aslan to save them.
And He had answered each one. In His time. And now, for all eternity, in His home they remained.
OOOO
(1) The Last Battle, p. 157